RACER.com RealTime Racing Feature

Few racing partnerships have endured as long, or been as successful, as RealTime Racing and Acura/Honda. Through three decades, 18 drivers’ championships – 11 of those coming in three wildly different disciplines for RealTime owner Peter Cunningham – and 14 manufacturers’ titles for Honda and Acura, the union has been an impressive one. It’s all led to the Wisconsin-based team being tasked with turning the Acura NSX GT3 racer into a winner in Pirelli World Challenge, just as it has with so many different machines before.

“It all started with a cold call to American Honda in December of 1986,” recalls Cunningham of the team’s humble beginnings. “The first RealTime project was ice racing and we won the championship in ’87, which got me an invitation from Honda to come to Sebring to test for a Firehawk Endurance Championship race. I did enough that they put me in for the weekend. From there, there was no long-term plan; it was just because I didn’t screw up and I was doing a job they liked, they’d invite me to go to the next race and the next one.”